34 replies to this topic

[funformula]

Every once in a while there is a sponsor/investor who is willing to spend a large amount of money in F1, make big announcements and promises but turns out to have empty pockets.

It always follows more or less the same script: Big money is announced coming in about three to six months mostly promoting a brand no one ever had heard of sometimes even no brand at all.

Then the CEO of this mysterious company is enjoing paddock life for a while and after the money didn´t arrive so did he

 

Some examples in F1 history that allegedly followed that script:

-"Pascal Poppler" (McLaren 1984)

-Moneytron (Onyx 1989)

-Broker (Sauber 1994)

-Shannon (Forti 1996 and half of the German F3 field )

-"t-minus" Prince Malik (Arrows 1999)

 

...more examples are gladly appreciated (what about Superfund?)

Edited by funformula, 23 November 2013 - 19:11.

[Charlieman]

Allegedly. 

 

Allegedly is a relatively short word and provides a bit of defence against libel/calumny, depending on where you live in the world. 'Allegedly' may allow us to talk about disclosed information, but does not necessarily permit us to introduce anything new.

 

This forum is hosted by a UK company and is subject to UK libel law. That means that our host resides in the world libel capital, by all definitions of 'capital'.

 

---

Moneytron is alleged to be a part-Ponzi scheme (see http://www.ivarhagen...ith-mathematics as a starter). But if van Rossem had been spending other people's money, he couldn't raise enough to run an F1 team.  

 

Edited for spelling of 'libel'.

Edited by Charlieman, 23 November 2013 - 18:20.

[Les]

I remember a story that the Pacific Team were due to sponsored by a brand rather tastelessly called Black Death Cigarettes after Imola 94 but it didn't go through for obvious reasons. Actually I've found something on it here: www.devblog.ctdp.net/2010/01/wrong-sponsor-in-the-wrong-time/ 

Edited by Les, 23 November 2013 - 17:02.

[kayemod]

Not suggesting for a moment that there's anything even slightly dodgy about Mastercard, but the sponsorship that Eric Broadley claims to have been promised by them never materialised. In Mastercard's favour however, the F1 car that Lola built turned out to have been crap even by their standards, they did come up with some good cars in their time, but the T97 sure wasn't one of them.

[Tim Wilkinson]

Not suggesting for a moment that there's anything even slightly dodgy about Mastercard, but the sponsorship that Eric Broadley claims to have been promised by them never materialised. In Mastercard's favour however, the F1 car that Lola built turned out to have been crap even by their standards, they did come up with some good cars in their time, but the T97 sure wasn't one of them.

Wasn't the money to be received by Lola in that deal somehow tied in to how many people signed on the line with Mastercard?

 

Southern Organs probably deserves a mention for efforts outside of F1.

[Ray Bell]

Craig Gore, son of Mike Gore, was a classic...

 

http://www.brisbanet...1118-17z9u.html

 

You'll see in that item that he left an Indycar team in the lurch for $A20m, but he'd been playing ducks and drakes with others for some time. He gave Phil Ward's Aussie Race Cars a hard time with big promises, small deposits and displays of wealth and things to come. Here's a press release, for the reality check with Phil:

 

The 2005 Aussie Racing Cars championship will officially be known as the Wright Patton Shakespeare Aussie Racing Cars Series.

Wright Patton Shakespeare and Aussie Racing Cars reached the naming rights agreement for the 2005 season in the lead-up to the category’s first round at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.

The announcement further strengthens the link between Aussie Racing Cars and Wright Patton Shakespeare after WPS Racing announced late in 2004 that they would be entering an AU Falcon in this year’s championship.

The team is yet to settle on a driver for the number 23 car and the team is hoping to secure the services of a promising young talent.

Craig Gore – Wright Patton Shakespeare:
“This partnership is one that we see a lot of potential in – it is indicative of our belief that the racing public is a great market for our business. The Aussie Racing Cars are certainly becoming increasingly popular and the arrangement will complement the V8Supercar team. It is also a fantastic avenue for WPS Racing to bring young drivers through the ranks.”

Phil Ward – Aussie Racing Cars:
“This is our first naming rights sponsorship for Aussie Racing Cars and represents somewhat of a coming of age for our category. Wright Patton Shakespeare has shown how important motorsport is to the company and Craig Gore has shown an enormous amount of faith in the success of Aussie Racing Cars.”

[kayemod]

Southern Organs probably deserves a mention for efforts outside of F1.

 

Also outside F1, who can forget Elgam Organs? As Gerry Marshall and others referred to them, "Elgam, the Spanish gobbler".

[bsc]

Wasn't the money to be received by Lola in that deal somehow tied in to how many people signed on the line with Mastercard

If memory serves, MasterCard were to launch a credit card on the back of their involvement with the F1 team. Lola would therefore receive a share of the money generated by the card in lieu of conventional sponsorship money. One of the draw backs was that HSBC (sponsor of Stewart) refused to let their customers be sent details of the card as it would help a rival team. In any event, Lola went under before the new card could be launched. MasterCard briefly resurfaced as a small sponsor for Jordan at the '97 British GP.

 

Such 'unconventional' sponsorship deals aren't uncommon. MTV was the title sponsor of the Simtek team. The team received advert time on the channel, which could then be passed on to other sponsors.

[DogEarred]

Superfund were a bit more than a 'sponsors that never were'.

A successful (for a time at least) investment company based in Vienna, their logo was seen on a couple of F1 cars for a while, presumably paid for & they came close to being even further involved.

Around 2005, they commissioned a single seater, V10 engined car design in order to start a world series. It was put together, with a serious designer in the UK & the prototype tested sucessfully.

They took the sensible decision not to start the series, due to all the rival series available at the time. They then proposed running the cars in a Asia only series but that never took off either.

[funformula]

 

A successful (for a time at least) investment company...

 

...They then proposed running the cars in a Asia only series but that never took off either.

 

Well... the world is full of investment companys being very successful in the first place until it turned out that they are playing the snowball game

 

...and the (motorsport) world is full of proposals that never took off.

[Vitesse2]

Sponsors: what sponsors?

[Mohican]

Sirotkin père & fils at Sauber right now ?

[DogEarred]

Well... the world is full of investment companys being very successful in the first place until it turned out that they are playing the snowball game

 

...and the (motorsport) world is full of proposals that never took off.

 

Your heading for this thread is 'sponsors that never were'. Superfund were.

[funformula]

Your heading for this thread is 'sponsors that never were'. Superfund were.

 

So they are no new members to the list. Thank you.

 

The former Minardi sponsor Wilux springs to mind. Maybe an addition to the list? I vaguely remenber troubles with the Minardi team management reported in the press.

Edited by funformula, 26 November 2013 - 21:21.

[Lee Nicolle]

Craig Gore, son of Mike Gore, was a classic...
 
http://www.brisbanet...1118-17z9u.html
 
You'll see in that item that he left an Indycar team in the lurch for $A20m, but he'd been playing ducks and drakes with others for some time. He gave Phil Ward's Aussie Race Cars a hard time with big promises, small deposits and displays of wealth and things to come. Here's a press release, for the reality check with Phil:

Off subject a bit but I saw a Craig Gore down as a driver in a recent race meeting. Not sure which one but it was a Natsoft timed event.

[arttidesco]

There is the tramp mentioned in Barry Boors famous Connew tale who claimed to represent a Japanese Millionaire while blagging a burger at a Wimpy from Peter Connew.

[arttidesco]

Allegedly, Peter Connew's former employer John Surtees got stitched up good and proper by Bang and Olufsen WIIANM are still solvent !

[TerryS]

Craig Gore, son of Mike Gore, was a classic...
 
http://www.brisbanet...1118-17z9u.html
 
You'll see in that item that he left an Indycar team in the lurch for $A20m, but he'd been playing ducks and drakes with others for some time. He gave Phil Ward's Aussie Race Cars a hard time with big promises, small deposits and displays of wealth and things to come. Here's a press release, for the reality check with Phil:

Craig Gore was arrested on Good Friday at Brisbane airport whilst attempting to leave Australia. Warrants for his arrest have been out since 27 February.
He was charged yesterday (Saturday) with 12 charges of misappropriating $800K of superannuation monies.

There won't be many who would be sorry to see him in jail.

[TerryS]

A vert good history of Craig Gore. Fascinating reading

http://moreongore.blogspot.com.au/

[Ray Bell]

So Craig was about seven or eight when his father left to live with Jenny Parker...

I gather that this determined his attitude to Mike. He was so upset about it he didn't want to know his father at all.

But everything I ever read about him sounds like he's become an absolute carbon copy of the old man! Being able to sweet-talk people out of large sums of money, resorting to foul language and threats when things don't go his way, setting things up so other people lose money as he gets the advantage, it's all just the way Mike Gore operated.

But probably with just a tad more class. Or is that 'panache'?

[ensign14]

Not suggesting for a moment that there's anything even slightly dodgy about Mastercard, but the sponsorship that Eric Broadley claims to have been promised by them never materialised. In Mastercard's favour however, the F1 car that Lola built turned out to have been crap even by their standards, they did come up with some good cars in their time, but the T97 sure wasn't one of them.

 

What says a lot about that deal is Mastercard then signed with Jordan.  Whereas with Lola they were getting the entire card branding, with Jordan they got a tiny sticker abaft the front wheel.

 

I remember the Mastercard proposal and thinking "this ain't gonna work".  The idea being that Lola would get £x for every person who got a Mastercard Lola credit card.  Which was never going to be more than a few thousand at the absolute most optimistic.
 

[kayemod]

What says a lot about that deal is Mastercard then signed with Jordan.  Whereas with Lola they were getting the entire card branding, with Jordan they got a tiny sticker abaft the front wheel.

 

I remember the Mastercard proposal and thinking "this ain't gonna work".  The idea being that Lola would get £x for every person who got a Mastercard Lola credit card.  Which was never going to be more than a few thousand at the absolute most optimistic.
 

 

Weren't the payments to be dripped to Lola in stages throughout the season? As you say, never likely to be anywhere near enough to keep even a makeweight F1 team going, and I think that to some extent, the payments were to be based on track success. My dad was Lola's bank manager at the time, he couldn't discuss it with me, but I think he advised against it, but maybe it was the best or more probably only, offer they had. It was fairly common knowledge that the company wasn't too healthy at the time, and one way and another, their F1 adventure pretty much finished them.

[ensign14]

The original plan was to launch it a year before Lola entered F1, but for whatever reason Lola gave into Mastercard pressure to launch well before they were ready.   Had they had that year at least all of the subscribers would have been in place, and perhaps the plug would have been pulled on the project.

 

I remember Eric Broadley saying that there was no need for a wind tunnel... 

[kayemod]

I remember Eric Broadley saying that there was no need for a wind tunnel...

Yes, but as Mandy Rice Broadley might have said, he would, wouldn't he? A bit old school, he was always sceptical, but their experience with the T260 CanAm put Eric off them for life. As far as I can remember, the T260 was the only Lola that saw the inside of the nearby Specialised Mouldings tunnel, I made all the test models, some of which had to be seen to be believed. It didn't go well, the car was misconceived from the start, and the more SM's Peter Wright experimented, mainly with the front end aerodynamics, the worse it seemed to get. Jackie Stewart now says that the car was terrible, but it was one of the most successful CanAms ever up to that point, two wins and two seconds as I recall, some others would have killed for results like that.

[chunder27]

I think in MotoGP in 2003 the DAntin team painted their bikes in Visa colours, either because a deal was imminent or they were touting.

It never happened, and if you ask Neil Hodgson, he does not remember his time there fondly with regard to bike failures etc!

[LotusElise]

Hasn't someone claiming to be the Maltese Tourist Board (or similar) mysteriously disappeared on a couple of drivers? 

[ensign14]

Made them cross.

[Lee Nicolle]

Dick Johnson got burnt very badly a decade plus ago with a deal for V8SC. It was the deal that just about broke him, Seemingly a Ponzi type scheme? DJR never really recovered and cost son Steve his drive. And then various investors? until Mr Penske.

[Lee Nicolle]

Somewhere on here there is a similar thread, Buford a long lamented contributor had a couple of very good stories about these 'schemes'

[Dick Dastardly]

What was the story about Southern Organs? I'd only heard about them via a Catchpole cartoon in Autosport in the very early 70s, with Catchpole saying "he had organs behind him"   

[Ray Bell]

And what about Arco Graphite?

Did that deal produce funding or just a lot of hot air?

[Peter0Scandlyn]

That was an interesting read on Mr Gore......Happy to read he has free board and lodging too....

[Mohican]

Do the various sponsors of Caterham F1 count here ? Airbus, GE, Dell and Intel ?

 

I only ask since it appears that Tony Fernandes may have used whatever funds he received for something else than the F1 team.

[Arjan de Roos]

Not F1, not truly unpaid sponsorship, but a story directly involving another long lamented member, Twin Window: The Porsche 956 Dallas sponsored and how a sponsor livery was made with use of only a cigarette box, print-out, unfolded. From post #4.

 

http://forums.autosp...iveries-merged/

 

Another TNF classic in my view.

[WonderWoman61]

SS United and Super Aguri in 2007.